


A Face in a Mirror

by suzannahbee123



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: After TWS, Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Angst and Feels, Gen, bucky piecing his brain together, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:38:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21872401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzannahbee123/pseuds/suzannahbee123
Summary: A face holds a name, memories, an identity… to lose it is to lose yourself. What happens when it is found again?
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	A Face in a Mirror

In a world ruled by conforming to high standards of beauty, where strangers faces of all colours and ages and genders were plastered everywhere to see, and where the internet kept them all right  _ there  _ for anyone to find at any point, it was hard for anyone to forget what they looked like.

Seventy years, and it could happen though.

_ “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes!” _

_ “SHUT UP!” _

The words rang in the mind of the man stood inside a derelict building. 

_ “I’m with you until the end of the line.” _

These words too… they meant something. The man  _ knew _ they meant something… 

The past and the present blurred, nails and spikes in his brain, pinning whole swaths of empty black together in his head and and that blonde soldiers voice is pulling it all apart.

_ Colours,  _ they burned against the black.  _ Shapes,  _ morphed in and out of focus, pushing against the new holes that hadn’t been there before.  _ Voices….  _ They screamed and hissed and yelled. The voices were what the man was scared of.

_ “Wipe him and start over,” _

The man flinched in the shadows of the old building, his head throbbing, burning, senses screaming that all he knew would be taken from him.

Again.

How did he know that though? 

_ “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes,” _

That soldier… the man had been sent to kill him… why hadn’t he?

_ “Bucky?” _

Sirens screamed in the distance, so the man did what the hissing voices had told him to do;

_ “Soldat, if you are separated, you are to hide, yes? Repeat!” _

_ His skin stings as a slap is levelled against the flesh of his cheek. _

_ They would always do worse than a strike to the face. The man repeated back, “I will hide if separated,” _

_ “Good, Soldat… very good…” _

_ Hands then… gentle… the endless cycle of pain and comfort, pain and less pain…  _

_ Always pain though. _

_ “Wipe him and start over.” _

The man shivers, the feeling of… the word… his face scrunches…

_ “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes!” _

COLD!

The feeling of  _ cold  _ overwhelms him, the memory of the word thrown into his head, along with pictures of his own hand reaching through mist and ice…

_ Clothing. New clothing. _

The man has a new mission. Dry clothing, and—

_ “Return to the base, Soldat,” _

_ —  _ and he would find where to go next. Or they would find him.

The blonde soldiers face rises once more, wet, blood dripping… he had not done as asked…

_ “I’m with you until the end of the line,” _

The words rang… hummed… the empty black swirling with  _ things  _ that the man wanted to look at, stomach twisting and bile burning…

_ No! _

Not yet. Soon. First though, the clothing, and food.

***

The man waited… what was time to us meant nothing to him… cuts closed shut, bruising gone and swelling disappeared. The broken arm had long since healed, the basic medical training had served him well—

_ “Hail HYDRA!” _

_ “I’ll never say it, you sons of bitches!” _

He flinches… this memory… hazy and indistinct though it may be… the man knew it was real…

_ “Wipe him and start over,” _

His head throbs again, like needles, like ice… but he needs to know…

_ “Bucky?” _

_ “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes!” _

The man looks down at the metal hand at his left…

“This wasn’t… m-mine…” the words scratch as they come out, the first spoken out loud since…

_ “I’m with you until the end of the line,” _

His head hurts… but this pain he controls… and the man—

_ Bucky… this is my name? _

— he needs to know.

***

The warm water cascades down his flesh… it feels…

_ Good. Nice.  _

His hair sticks to his face, the man wants to… what was the word…

_ “Go take a bath, young man! And mind not stealin’ all the soap like last time!” _

The warm voice, a twang that’s as unfamiliar as it is heart wrenching, sings in his head. The face is murky, like looking through the other side of ice encrusted glass… but he thinks he recognises her…

_ Mom… mother… _

The man’s hands slip on the tile. He needs  _ soap  _ to  _ wash  _ with _ ,  _ that was the word he needed…

There was no white bar though. Just bottles of liquid that he didn’t recognise.

The house was empty, the man had made sure of it, watching the comings and goings of the many workers who appeared to be building new apartments.

The bathroom wasn’t finished yet, and the mechanism for the water spray was different than what—

_ HYDRA. Remember their name… for later… _

— HYDRA had used, but the man figured it out. He wanted to be  _ clean  _ again. 

_ I used to be clean. Ma made sure. _

Dirt swirled down the drain, and more memories bubbled up. 

_ “Stevie, c’mon!” _

_ “Where’re we goin’, Buck?” _

_ “The future.” _

Tile cracks under his metal fingers. Dirt continues to swirl away.

_ “HAIL HYDRA!! HAIL HYDRA!!” _

_ “FUCK YOU!! GET YA HANDS OFFA ME!” _

The glass panel shielding the floor from the water, cracks…

_ The ice cold water blasts against his skin, naked and vulnerable. The hose, no simple gardening hose, more like the ones from back home, that the fire station had used- _

_ “Soldat! Repeat! Your name is Soldat!” _

_ “NEVER!” _

His hair is still plastered to his face, the strands dark, inky black… he can’t see the present, the cold of the past is too much… too much to be ignored…

_ “The chair, get the animal in the chair,” _

_ “Wipe him and start over,” _

_ “My name is… James… J-J-J-” _

_ Lightning and fire. All consuming… the image of the woman who gave him soap burned up… the memory of the small man who fought taller ones sizzled away… _

_ His own name, scrubbed away. His own face, never to be seen again… _

The man jerks, glass shatters, and broken tile litters the floor.

The water is cold, but he can fix that… 

***

His clothes are dark, baggy, nondescript. Found in a box meant for the poor. Guilt spears at the man… but he is needy too, and he has surely done worse than steal clothing…

_ “Your mission, Soldat… one shot, he will be sat next to his wife,” _

_ The red mist, screams, news coverage that lasts a lifetime… this death was one of many… this murder would not be easily forgotten… _

Adapting to the world was easier than he thought. The longer away from the cruel people who had caged him, the more the empty black in his head filled with colours, shapes, voices,  _ memories. _

_ I had a life. A friend. Family… I had a name… _

The name… the man’s name… it was right  _ there— _

_ “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes!” _

_ “SHUT UP!” _

_ —  _ but there was something he needed to do…

***

Washington DC, the man knew now it was the capital he was hiding in. The White House and the Lincoln Memorial and all things American right there.

He had been here many times, and yet he only saw everything for the first time now.

The man had found somewhere to stay, to hide, to regroup and start collecting memories. A fury burned in him, the desire to wreak vengeance on those who had taken him growing stronger each and every day. 

A tornado would hold less power.

The wall in the abandoned apartment called him. The item hidden behind the raggedy old cloth would help him find his name… but he was afraid…

_ “You’re a handsome charmer, Bucky Barnes,” _

_ “Blue eyes like I ain’t never seen before!” _

_ “For sure a lady killer, you’re a total dreamboat!” _

The man’s hands, metal and flesh, shook. Tears gathered and stung.

_ “You are no one. Nothing. Our Soldat. Hail HYDRA!” _

_ “Hail HYDRA.” _

He had said it. He had forgotten everything. Only black had existed in his head and they had controlled the shapes and colours and sounds. He was a living shadow puppet, no name, form, or—

_ I should look… I want my name back… _

— face. His face was long forgotten. His name would come as soon as he saw his own reflection… but he was afraid.

_ “I’m with you until the end of the line, pal.” _

The man stood, stepped away from the first notebook he had started writing in. His fingers hurt, writing words long forgotten in his own language had  _ hurt…  _ but he would do it… the memories of those lost, thanks to HYDRA, thanks to  _ him,  _ would not stay quiet.

Pain in his fingers was a small price to pay.

The man comes to a stop in front of the cloth, his fingers, the flesh ones with more sensitivity, reach out to trace the material…

_ One tug, and I’ll have my name. _

He pulls, before he can change his mind.

***

Slow, even steps. Careful manoeuvring through the crowds. He is big, large, but he knows how to not be seen, even in plain sight.

HYDRA made damn sure of that.

He goes through the crowd in the museum. Heading towards to exhibit at the back. It had cost him twenty dollars, a crisp bill he had been forced to steal from the wallet of a stranger in a suit, but he had done it…  _ needed  _ to.

His face was different, but still the same… the shapes and colours and voices were all  _ there  _ and yet the blurred—

_ “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes!” _

_ “Jimmy, go out and fetch me some milk, would ya? Your dad stole the last bit for tea,” _

— he just wanted to  _ know…  _ was he who he thought he was? Or was this another trick from HYDRA?

Captain America’s face - Steve Rogers - it stared down at him, handsome and dignified and so eerily similar to the face of the small man he remembered that his heart started to pound.

_ He looks like Stevie… and I was sent to kill him… _

Further into the exhibit. Easy steps around rushing children. Blood pounding in his ears at the sight of the Howling Commandos.

_ I remember them? Gabe was quiet and Dum Dum was loud. All of them were nice and brave… _

And there…  _ there…  _

James Buchanan Barnes. The only Howling Commando lost in battle.

His face stared down at him. Younger, carefree, and hopeful of the future.

HYDRA took that.

James Buchanan Barnes stared up at his face of his youth. The same face he saw in the mirror that morning. His hair was longer now —

_ “Cut your hair, Jimmy! I won’t have a layabout for a son!” _

_ —  _ he had a beard—

_ “The dames, they don’t like all that hair on ya face, Stevie, gotta keep up appearances!” _

_ —  _ and his eyes held more shadows now than they did then—

_ “You have no name! HAIL HYDRA!” _

_ “Kill them, Soldat. Make it look like an accident,” _

_ “Wipe him and start over.” _

—- but it was  _ him. _

“My name is James Buchanan Barnes. I’m Bucky.”

He had his face. He had his name.

He had his mission.


End file.
